Empathy
by Checkerboards
Summary: -Sorrow 7- "Can I see another's woe, and not be in sorrow too? Can I see another's grief, and not seek for kind relief?" - William Blake
1. In Another Pair of Shoes

Coming home after a nice vacation is always a letdown. The memories of sandy beaches, carefree days, and fun-packed nights vanish like a popped bubble in the face of all of the real world's responsibilities and problems. In fact, a few minutes after stepping through the front door, many ex-vacationers feel like they've never left at all.

The intrepid band of travelers that had set out in early January for Myrtle Beach had returned to Gotham on February second, a date that the Riddler had assured them would provide enough of a distraction to the forces of justice that they'd be able to make it to their various homes safely. And, indeed, when they turned on the radio, the breaking news broke in with constant updates on the situation developing with Harvey Dent in – where else – the Second National Bank. What bat-masked vigilante had time to keep an eye on the roads when he had a duality-obsessed and extremely well-armed ex-lawyer to contend with?

The Riddler's car – or at least, the car that had become his after a few hurried minutes with a screwdriver - trundled away down the street. Sorrow and Grief watched its taillights disappear in the flurrying snow, blinking as fat snowflakes tumbled across their vision. When it had gone, Sorrow lifted her small suitcase and stepped inside the vacant storefront that concealed their second home. "You coming?" she called, letting the cracked front door flop closed behind her.

Grief, in better days known as Troy Grey, picked up his own suitcase and obediently trudged after her. He scuffed through the snow, stamping it off of his shoes, concentrating on the fluffy white stuff in a desperate attempt to avoid thinking about where he was, who he was with, why he was there, and what on earth he was going to do about it.

They were back in Gotham. He couldn't believe it. He'd asked, he'd pleaded, he'd _begged_ for them to go somewhere else. _Anywhere_ else. Metropolis. Keystone City. Alaska. Russia. Australia. But no - she'd said they were staying in Gotham, and so there they stayed. He wanted to go - didn't that matter at all to her? He'd given up everything for her - his job, his apartment, his family, _everything_ - and she wouldn't even listen when he told her how much he didn't want to come back here.

He followed her snowy footprints up the stairs, suitcase banging against the backs of his knees, and stopped just behind her as she surveyed their tiny one-room home.

Everything was ruined. The window had been completely smashed, allowing a month's worth of rain, sleet, and snow to blow in and destroy the walls. Shattered glass covered the mold and mildew staining the wood floor. The missing-person fliers that his father had dropped were spread about the room, half-frozen in puddles of filthy ice. The overturned couch had a very large vigilante-shaped dent in the middle of it. And, just to make everything perfectly homelike and cheerful, a trio of bullet holes had sent spiderwebbed cracks through the plaster of the wall nearest the door.

Sorrow picked her bag back up. "Looks like we're not staying here. Let's go back to the warehouse."

"The warehouse?" he repeated, sudden panic burning like a wildfire behind his eyes. "But Batman knows where it is!"

She gestured to the wreckage behind her. "I'm pretty sure he knows where this place is too."

"Can't we find a new place?" he said desperately.

"No," she snapped, shifting the heavy bag to her other hand. "Finding a new place takes time and money and we don't have much of either right now. Besides, we've already _got_ a new place to set up. Remember? The plan?"

Anxiety stretched its venomous tendrils into his abdomen and strangled his stomach. The plan. She'd spent the last half of January doing nothing but planning, in secret, when the Riddler and his girl were nowhere near them. She had meticulously figured out every detail, every weakness, and every potential flaw. It didn't matter. If it failed – which it was bound to – the best he could hope for was a few weeks in Arkham's hospital wing before they were permanently locked away.

"You're sure you want to do this?" he asked, knowing the answer but hoping for a different one.

"Positive."

"But if we get caught – "

"If we get caught, we'll break out again," she shrugged, shouldering past him and trotting down the stairs.

"We won't be able to!" he insisted, running after her. "You don't understand. The basement – " As he skipped off of the last step, Sorrow dropped her bag on his foot. He yelped with pain and yanked himself free. "What was that for?"

She glared at him. "I'm tired of hearing it. I did escape from the basement, you know. Even if they do put us down there, _which they won't_, I can get us back out. Stop worrying so much."

"Stop _worrying_?" he squeaked.

"Yes! We'll be fine."

Fine? They'd be _fine_? He shook his head frantically, trying to find the words to explain how absolutely _not_ fine they would be when Batman caught up with them. Batman was sure to want retribution for their part in letting nearly all of Arkham's captured rogues out on the streets. The staff of Arkham would be happy to stuff Sorrow in the basement and leave her there forever, and he was willing to bet that he would be subject to the same treatment. If they were caught - _when_ they were caught - they'd never see daylight again.

He wasn't an idiot. He knew that the rogues of Gotham had some immense blind spots when it came to seeing the world as it really was. All that anyone had to do was pick up a newspaper on any given day to see a member of the gallery committing some atrocity in the name of their pet cause, whether that meant saving the world from a perceived overinfestation of humans or spreading the word of Lewis Carroll one mind-controlled minion at a time. He was well aware of the rogues' propensity to ignore the bits of the world that didn't match up to their vision. He just hadn't thought that Sorrow would ever fall into that trap too.

"Well?" she asked, breaking his train of thought.

"Can we please go somewhere else?" he asked plaintively.

She sighed with irritation and picked up her suitcase. "I'm tired, and I'm going to the warehouse. You can come if you want to." She shoved past him and stalked out the front door.

His stomach dropped into his shoes. Gotham's underworld was frightening, and Batman was terrifying, but the thought of losing Sorrow scared him right down to his bones. "Wait for me!" he yelped, skittering after her.

* * *

Batman did know where the warehouse was. He'd been on the rooftop, in the main space, and he'd probably climbed up the walls a time or two to try and find her. Bat-bootprints and trailing cape marks scuffed the snow that had fallen in through the large hole in the ceiling. The space set aside for henchmen, when she had them, had been thoroughly ransacked for any clue to her present whereabouts. Her private living quarters had never hosted a surprise visit from a pointy-eared vigilante, though, thanks to being carefully hidden behind a door that blended in seamlessly with the wall. When Sorrow let herself and Grief in, she found the place was as she'd left it - mail on the kitchen table, spare coat on the chair in the corner, and dust on everything else.

Sorrow dropped her bag in the bedroom and returned to the kitchen, pulling a well-hidden cell phone out of the back of a drawer. The battery had gone flat after months of disuse. She ferreted out the charger and plugged it in as Grief settled sullenly down on the couch.

What was his problem, anyway? Yes, Gotham was dangerous, but so was everywhere else. The other cities he'd mentioned as possible new homes were just as infested with hero types as Gotham was. At least in Gotham the heroes didn't have powers. The Batman and his brats may have been hyperintelligent and way too skilled at martial arts, but they didn't have bulletproof skin or laser eyes. The Bats may have been armed with an array of pointy, painful gadgets, but none of those gadgets could even come close to the power of, say, a certain green ring that could manifest anything the wearer wanted it to. How on earth did he think they would be able to survive against those kinds of odds?

Who said they could survive in another city regardless of what heroes lived there? It wasn't easy to set up shop in a strange town. Mafiosos and career criminals weren't exactly eager to welcome new neighbors, particularly neighbors that would cut in on their already-claimed turf. Even in Gotham, it had taken Sorrow years to build her reputation up to where it was, and her reputation was hardly something to be proud of. She probably ranked somewhere below the Ventriloquist but above the Penny Plunderer. Well, maybe a _little_ higher nowadays – she had managed to swing an invite to the Penguin's party, after all – but all of that hard-won respect would be completely absent in a new city.

And yes, the threat of Arkham's high-security basement wing was enough to send dread rippling across the back of her mind whenever she thought about it. But if they could stay out of Batman's hands until her plan was operational, they would never have to worry about Arkham again.

The phone had taken enough of a charge to turn on. She powered it up, ignoring Grief's sulk on the couch. If he really didn't want to be here, then he wouldn't have followed her home.

She dialed a number with her thickly gloved pinky. It rang only once before the man on the other end picked up. "Boss? That you?"

"It's me, Sammy," she said cheerfully. "Want some work?"

"You bet!"

"We're at the warehouse. Come on over."

There was a short pause. "We?"

There was no way that she was going to try to explain Grief over the phone, particularly when the subject of the conversation would be in easy eavesdropping distance. "Just come over."

"Sure thing, boss." The phone connection clicked off.

Sorrow left the phone on the kitchen counter and headed for the living room, seating herself in the large comfortable armchair directly across from Grief. "We need to talk."

"About?" he muttered, fiddling with a loose thread on his coat.

"You. You've been moody for weeks." He shrugged uncomfortably, not meeting her eyes. "I have a lot of work to do. I don't have time to baby you through this. You can be either here with me, in Gotham, working on the plan, or you can leave."

He scowled at her. "I'm not leaving you."

"Then cheer up!" she snapped. "You don't have to be Mr. Rogers or anything, but a smile every now and then would be nice."

"I...if you'd just...it's..." he spluttered hopelessly.

"I'll say it one more time. I. Am. Not. Leaving. Gotham," she said, slowly and patiently, the words clicking into place like locks on a door. "Now are you staying or going?"

"Staying," he mumbled.

"Good. Go get the plans out of my suitcase while I clean off the table." He didn't move. "Well?"

Silently, he got to his feet and disappeared into her small bedroom. She sighed and returned to the kitchen, halfheartedly wiping the dust from the table and chairs with a much-abused dishcloth.

_Tap-tap-tap-KNOCK-KNOCK-tappa-tappa_!

"That's Sammy," Sorrow called. Grief appeared from the bedroom, clutching a loose bundle of papers in his arms. He laid them out on the table as she unlocked the door and cracked it open.

Sammy stood there, grinning at her. Snow had piled up in tiny drifts on the brim of his hat and in the folds of his scarf. "Hey, boss!"

"Hey, Sammy," she smiled back, pulling the door wide. "C'mon in."

He trotted inside, sliding out of his coat and perching it on the coat rack without really looking at what he was doing. "How long you been back in town?"

"Two, three hours?" she estimated, taking a seat at the table.

Sammy slid into his customary spot and paused as he met Grief's curious stare. The two men sized each other up silently.

To hell with explanations. "Sammy, this is Grief," she introduced, flicking through the papers. "Grief, this is Sammy."

She knew that Grief knew who Sammy was - back in the days when he'd been her therapist, Sammy was one of the few topics that she felt comfortable discussing - and as for Sammy, it wouldn't take much of a leap of logic to determine the newcomer's status when he had a name like Grief.

The men considered one another for a moment.

"Nice to meet you," Grief said, sticking out a polite hand.

"Likewise," Sammy said, accepting the proffered handshake with all the caution of a seasoned henchman who wasn't quite sure what was lurking underneath the other man's gloves.

Sorrow snatched up a piece of paper that had been lurking at the bottom of the stack. "Ah! Okay, Sam. Here's the plan." She laid the basics out for him, explaining it with her customary guarded caution with regard to details. "So, can you do it?"

He stared at the various blueprints and hastily scrawled ideas. "Gee, boss, I dunno. Kidnapping and blackmail and..._this_..." He gestured vaguely to the largest blueprint. "I mean, this isn't like you. I thought you wanted to do another bank job, like old times. This is more like...well, you know..."

"Like something the other rogues might do?" Sorrow inquired, an edge of steel on her carefully casual voice.

"Well, yeah. I mean, Batman's gonna be really mad at you. _Really_ mad," he emphasized.

"He's been really mad at me before. Come to think of it, he's _already_ really mad at me, so what's the difference?" she shrugged.

"A few more weeks in traction?" Sammy suggested darkly. Grief winced.

"Sammy," she glared. "I didn't ask for your opinion. This is the job. _Can you do it_?"

"Sure thing, boss," he agreed instantly, aware that people who questioned their criminally insane superiors had a remaining lifespan that could be measured in seconds. "I'm gonna need help, though."

"Get an assistant. Someone you can trust," she added. "Someone who's been around a while."

"Sure thing, boss. I know just the guy."

"Good. And when you get a moment, fix up the jewelry store, okay?"

Sammy looked down at the plans that would probably eat up every single second of his waking life for the next few weeks. "Sure. No problem, boss."

(_to be continued_)


	2. What Goes Around, Comes Around

_Author's Note: Just a friendly reminder – this is still taking place in the canon of the lateish eighties with a few minor differences here and there. Damian, Steph and Cass are still enjoying (or perhaps enduring) life under the thumbs of their criminally crazy parents, Jason's still dead, and Nightwing: Disco Edition has recently taken up residence in Bludhaven. On with the show!_

The Gotham Plaza Hotel's main ballroom was aglow with sparkling lights. They twinkled festively from nearly every surface, dangling from the ceiling in stylish swags, clustered on the tables in tiny gem-like piles, and spiraling up pink-and-peach bedecked columns to glitter teasingly behind the gauzy fabric draped over them. Even the cake, with its sixteen golden candles, had lights peeking through the frilly, flowery ornamentation covering the icing.

The tiny lights also gleamed dully off of the flat black metalwork of half-a-dozen M16s that were pointed directly at the partygoers. Sorrow and Grief wandered through the party, collecting jewelry and trinkets from the stunned guests.

"Oooooooh," Sorrow whistled, looking at a table piled high with gifts. She set her sack down and lifted up a heavy necklace covered with sapphires the size of robin's eggs. "What do you think? Is it me?" she asked, draping it around her neck and batting flirtatious eyes at Grief.

"Gorgeous." He smiled weakly at her and turned to the next guest, relieving her of any future worries about her antique diamond bracelet by way of dropping it into his bag.

"Hey!" The birthday girl, clad in a dress of sparkly pink satin and tulle, shoved past her parents and snatched the necklace out of Sorrow's hands. "That's _mine_!"

There are many types of silence in the world. There's the breathless, nerve-wracking silence of the open air before you step off of a bridge with a bungee cord tied to your legs. There's the soft, hushed silence of a graveyard at night, broken only by the occasional flutter of batwings. There's even the hot, shrinking silence after you've opened your mouth and said something that was unimaginably stupid, offensive, or both at once to precisely the wrong people.

The silence that fell over the party was the kind that henchmen, particularly henchmen armed with extremely capable-looking guns, inspired nearly every day on the job. The two closest to the spoiled sweet-sixteen in question turned ever so slowly until their weapons were aimed directly at the pretty girl's pouting face.

"Portia," her mother said softly. "Let it go."

The girl turned to her mother and stomped one pink-shoed foot. "But mom, I _need_ it!"

Sorrow twitched the necklace away from Portia and shoved it into her sack. "Sweetie, if you can afford to rent out the Gotham Plaza Hotel for your party, you sure as hell don't _need_ anything on this table. Go back to mommy before you get hurt."

"You wouldn't dare!" Portia gasped.

"Oh yes she would," the nearest henchman drawled, easing the gun up to his shoulder. "Or at least, _I _would…"

"Portia!" her father snapped.

Sulking, she retreated to her father's side. With a few more generous donations from various guests, the sacks were bulging with goodies and were almost too heavy to lift. Sorrow and Grief hoisted the sacks onto their shoulders and led their temporary henchmen in a miniature parade out the back through the service entrance, which conveniently had a hallway that led directly to an empty alleyway.

The door slammed behind them. "Here's your cut," Sorrow said, gesturing to Grief to hand his sack over. "Nice work."

The henchmen, guns slung across their backs, jockeyed for possession of the bag as Sorrow and Grief ducked past them.

After a brief scurry down a few back alleys, they skidded to a halt at the back of an empty school bus. An enormous jack lifted the back corner of the bus, supporting it while Sammy frantically changed a flat tire. Sorrow slung the sack inside and climbed into the vehicle. She looked hopefully at the sky. Yes – there it was, the Batsignal, reflected off of the smoggy clouds like a second moon.

"Has there been anything on the radio?" she asked as Troy hauled himself up beside her.

"Nothing, boss. You're the only show in town tonight," Sammy said, spinning a lug nut roughly into place with one hand.

"Good." Sorrow leaned against the side of the door, watching the rooftops with eager eyes. "You having fun out there, Sammy?"

"Time of my life, boss," he grunted, wrenching the new wheel into place. "I just gotta – _erk_!"

It was possible that Sammy had done something silly, like dropping a torque wrench on his foot. Then again, at this time of night, the more likely explanation was that a person dressed like a giant bat (or a slightly altered Robin Hood) had thrown something exquisitely engineered and extremely painful at him.

"_Get in the bus_!" Sorrow shrieked. Following her own advice, she whipped around and dashed toward the driver's seat, bouncing like a ballistic ping-pong ball off of the seat backs as she raced down the narrow passageway. The front door, which had been left wide open, was suddenly blocked by a massive black-clad figure with a batarang clenched in one upraised hand.

Sorrow ducked as it zipped through the air over her head. "Hey, Bats. Having a good night?"

Scowling, Batman kicked a foot out behind himself. The door to the bus slammed shut so hard that the safety glass cracked.

"I guess not," she muttered. She backed away, not taking her eyes off of him, until her shoulders bumped into something warm. She spared a moment to glance behind her. Grief was there, back-to-back with her. At the back of the bus, Robin and Batgirl edged carefully toward them, herding them together like a pair of extremely naughty sheep.

"We really have to stop meeting like this," Sorrow joked uneasily.

"Where have you been?" Batman demanded.

"Oh, you know. Around," Sorrow said, waving a hand vaguely.

Batman glowered at her and shifted position, poised to coax the answer out of her by the repeated application of his fist to her face.

"Now!" Sorrow yelped, diving to the ground. Behind her, she heard Troy hit the floor with a _thud_.

The Bats expected many things when someone yelled 'Now' and dived to the floor. Gunfire, spring-loaded scythe blades aimed at neck height, flamethrowers – they'd survived them all by doing the smart thing and getting out of the way.

Unfortunately for them, in this case, this meant that they threw themselves down on the ground right next to the sevoflurane tanks strapped under the little brown seats. They hissed to life, filling the bus with gas almost instantly. In a few seconds, all three vigilantes were out cold.

Sorrow and Grief scrambled to their feet, holding their breath, and retrieved a pair of gas masks from underneath a nearby seat. Once they could breathe again, they began throwing open the windows, letting the fresh night air in. As Sorrow reached the front of the bus, she kicked the back of the driver's seat.

A lean, lanky henchman by the name of Kyle eeled out of the tiny space between the bus driver's seat and the pedals, nodded silently at Sorrow. The gas mask strapped over his face gave him an odd buglike look. He shut the gas off and handed the gas tank remote to Sorrow, opening a few more windows before making his way to the back of the bus.

As he passed over Robin, a hand suddenly jerked to life and clutched his ankle. He screeched, muffled through the gas mask, and kicked downward. What the gas hadn't accomplished, a boot to his unguarded head did. Robin lay splayed on the floor, his grip slackening around the henchman's ankle.

A black van backed slowly up to the bus. Sammy, rubbing a red mark on his forehead, pulled the back doors open. "Ready to go, boss?"

Sorrow nodded and descended from the bus, taking her place in the passenger seat of the van as her three henchmen loaded up the three unconscious crimefighters.

* * *

Unlike most obscenely rich playboys, Bruce Wayne was well accustomed to waking up in pain. Today, however, the only thing his body had to offer was a mere migraine, something that he could easily ignore. The foggy cloud of confusion was new, though.

Oh, right. He'd been knocked out by some kind of gas. He focused hard, trying to clear his head with willpower alone.

"Is he dead?" someone asked anxiously.

"I don't think so."

He concentrated on the voices, matching them up with his memories of last night. Oh. _Those_ two.

"He's not moving," Sorrow pointed out.

"I think I saw his eye move."

"Are you sure? I didn't want to kill him!" There was a soft, rapid thudding noise. "Nothing. Is he breathing?"

"Maybe," the second voice – Grief – said doubtfully.

He slowly slitted an eye. There they were, standing just a few feet away from him. He rolled upright and sprang toward them, ready to deal out some serious damage.

_Whud_. He stumbled backward, feeling pain throb through his fists. A window. Of course there was a window. He'd never have made such an impulsive attack if he hadn't had this leftover anesthetic clouding his judgment.

On the other hand, it certainly seemed to have the desired effect. The pair of blue-coated rogues had flung themselves down the hallway as if a pack of lions were after them.

Ignoring the pain in his fingers, he quickly examined his surroundings. He was in a rather large room with concrete walls supporting an enormous plexiglass window looking out onto a hallway backed with a large semicircle of benches. At the back of the room, a solid metal door with no visible handle blocked the only exit. The ceiling above him was a carefully arched shell of poured concrete. A tiny square opening in the ceiling, barred with a metal grating, bristled with electronic devices – a camera, a microphone, a pair of tiny speakers…

He dismissed the monitoring devices and strode over to the door. If he was remembering correctly – and he _always_ remembered correctly – the room he was in had previously belonged to Bebac and Mokolo, the Gotham Zoo's pair of western lowland gorillas. While zoos were masters at keeping animals caged, they were no match for a master crimefighter. It shouldn't take more than a few seconds to break out with the help of his utility belt –

Which, of course, was gone. He examined himself, eyebrows clustering together in irritation. Not only had they taken his belt, something that nearly every other rogue in Gotham had accomplished at some point, but they'd gone even farther and taken the rest of the suit too. No gloves with tiny computers built into them, no boots with handy lockpicks in the cuffs, no armor with its conveniently disguised tracking device. They'd taken it all and dressed him in…a gray jumpsuit? He peered down at his chest. The letters "ARKHAM ASYLUM" were stamped carelessly over his heart.

He had a sudden vision of what the future was going to hold. It was not a comfortable prospect. Then again, he'd been captured, imprisoned and interrogated by some of the most inventive and deviantly devious people in the country, the world, and the universe at large – how bad could a stint in a primate house run by a second-string rogue really be?

Sorrow and Grief reappeared. Instead of their usual blue coats, however, both of them sported bright white lab coats. Sorrow had taken the time to sweep her long red hair into a tight bun at the base of her neck. A pair of fake black-rimmed glasses were perched on her nose just above her cheerful, professional-looking smile. Grief stood next to her, hands jammed awkwardly into his pockets, looking like a man who has taken a large bite of oatmeal only to discover that the bowl actually contained wallpaper paste.

"Now that you're all awake, we can begin," she said, taking a moment to glance left and right. Bruce kept his face grimly blank as he began to note every detail that might help them escape. The cages to his left and his right – the orangutan and chimpanzee enclosures – were roughly where she'd looked. Presumably, that meant that Tim and Barbara were on either side of him.

She cleared her throat. "Welcome to Arkham Asylum. Well, not the real one, of course, but we've done our best to recreate it here. And why have we put you here? Well, let me ask you this – do you remember when we first met, Bats, and I very kindly didn't kill you? And in return for that wonderfully generous gesture, you handed me over to Arkham to be tortured to death." She glared at him balefully through the tiny rectangular lenses of her glasses. "Consider this as my little way of saying thanks."

"Mine too," Grief chimed in, hands visibly clenching into fists inside the pockets of his labcoat. "I told you they were being inhumane, and I told you they were being cruel, and you ignored us and took us right back. How _dare_ you call yourself a hero? And you," he added, glaring to the left.

"Enough," Sorrow said, cutting off his imminent rant.

_Tim wasn't there that night, so Barbara must be to the left_, Batman thought, adding the information to the small hoard already gathered in his memory.

"You may have noticed the speakers in the ceiling. We rigged those up so that you could hear us in the hallway. The glass here is just a _bit_ thicker than our windows in Arkham," she said, referring to panes of plexiglass that were a good four inches from front to back. "Now, normally in Arkham we can talk to each other, but we're not stupid enough to give you three the same privilege."

_Three. Confirmation that she got Tim and Barbara_.

"So you can hear us, and we can hear you, but you can't hear each other." She smiled evilly. "Don't worry about it getting too quiet, though. It's never quiet in Arkham, so we made some arrangements." She waved a hand in a beckoning gesture. A muted growl of cell doors clanking, inmates shouting, and feet thumping on metal grille floors rose from the speakers until it was nearly as loud as her voice.

_At least one accomplice working the sound system._

"We borrowed the raw footage from that documentary they did on Blackgate. Probably not enough screaming on it to be authentic, though, so we spliced in some stuff from a few horror movies." A Wilhelm scream, more tedious than terrifying, wailed in discordant harmony with the sound of a pair of inmates fighting over ownership of a magazine.

"Let's see here…" She glanced at the clipboard in the crook of her left arm. "You were all sleeping when we moved you in, which is unfortunate, because you missed out on a lot of good stuff. You didn't have to sit through that godawful questionnaire they always ask. You didn't get to change your own clothes, which means you missed out on a lot of quality mocking time. Pretend that some dumb-as-a-brick orderly called you some really insulting names while you were getting dressed, 'kay? Oh, and nice job on the suit security systems, by the way. It took about fifteen guys and half a hardware store to get you three out of them."

_At least fifteen other henchmen, probably not counting Grief or Sammy. _

"If you were really in Arkham, your stuff would be right downstairs. But since we don't have a storage area, and since your belts were full of dozens of those little blinky tracking thingys, we thought it might be fun to split everything up and hide it all around the city. After all, we wouldn't want anyone dropping by to break up the party early. We've also got a jammer running in case you have any little surprises in your masks."

_She left us our masks…why?_

She flipped a page. "What else does Arkham do…oh, yes. They've got that big speech about the rules and what you can and can't do. Well, our little asylum is a hell of a lot smaller than theirs, so I suppose our only real rules are stay in your cells and do what we tell you. Oh, and take your medication."

She smiled cheerfully at all three cells in turn and slung her arm around her sidekick. "I don't need medication, _he_ doesn't need medication, and neither do you three, but why should that stop us? It certainly doesn't stop anyone in the real Arkham. At meals, you'll find a little cup of meds on your tray. We'll be watching to make sure you take them. If we find out you haven't been following the rules, we can always give them to you in a dart. That's how they dose Croc, y'know, since he's too dangerous to get near." She flipped her papers closed and paused, a faint frown flitting across her face. "Am I forgetting something?"

"Therapy?" Grief suggested, half-smiling.

"Yes! Thank you. Therapy," she repeated happily. "You'll be attending therapy sessions with our esteemed Dr. Grey here –"

The esteemed Dr. Grey turned a peculiar shade of pink. "I thought you said we weren't doing that," he hissed.

"Oh, come on. Do we really want to deprive them of the joy of sitting there for an hour every day listening to someone asking them 'and how do you feel about that?'"

"Therapy's more than that!" he protested.

"Then you are more than welcome to conduct your sessions as you see fit."

Grief looked at Batman, who returned the favor with a level ten death-glare. "Right," he muttered uneasily.

"So. Any questions?" Sorrow asked brightly, looking at each cell in turn.

"Exactly how long do you expect to hold on to us in the middle of the most popular zoo in the nation?" Batman asked coldly.

Sorrow applauded, clutching the clipboard to her side with her elbow. "Well, well, Batsy figured it out! Yes, you're in Gotham Zoo's old primate house. We figured that if it could hold gorillas, it could hold you three. As for how long we'll be able to keep you here…ooooh, quite long, I expect. This building isn't scheduled to be torn down until the summer, and since the new primate house is up and running, I doubt anyone will wander in. In fact, I'm sure of it. Did you know that the head zookeeper has a girlfriend in Bludhaven?" She grinned. "Neither does his wife. At any rate, we've locked the doors and we've got some assistants…orderlies, if you will…to turn away any curious passersby. Oh, and if Nightwing does manage to find you here, don't worry – there's no one in the gibbon cage yet."

She glanced at the shiny silver clock pendant dangling from her pocket. "Right. Well, it's time for lunch. For us, that is. You won't get fed for another few hours yet. Hope you like cold soup!" She linked her arm through Grief's and sauntered away.

The speaker volume rose until the sounds of cell doors slamming echoed off the walls of the enclosure. Batman settled down on his small cot, cross-legged, and closed his eyes, willing himself into a state of pure, tranquil calm. They were putting him through this to make him angry, to make him upset. To humiliate him. Only remaining calm would see him through this.

At least Dick hadn't been in Gotham. Not that he would have been, anyway – between the Teen Titans and his work in Bludhaven, he hadn't been to Gotham in weeks. That's why Bruce had gone down to see him last week, to check up on him and make sure that everything was all right. He'd meant it as a friendly visit, or at least as friendly as his visits ever got these days.

But then Dick had been so defensive, and that had made _him_ defensive, and then both of them had gotten edgy and the whole thing had spiraled out of control into the same kind of quarreling that had led Dick to abandon Gotham in the first place. Bruce had left Bludhaven on a note that was more sour than one played by a six-year-old tuba player.

So Dick wouldn't be coming to save them. Dick wouldn't even come to Gotham, not after the things they'd said. Bruce would have to save them himself. But first, he had to calm down.

He concentrated, feeling his heartbeat slowing down, and slipped into blankness.

* * *

One by one, the fluorescent lights clicked off. Sorrow took her hand from the switch and walked down the hallway, silently padding past each of the filled "cells".

Much like Arkham, the cells each had a single door. Unlike Arkham, though, the doors were in the back, in a private hallway secluded from the hallway intended for visitors gaping at the gorillas.

Her prisoners were all in bed for the night, tucked under their thin blankets, knocked cold under the weight of their first round of medication. Well, maybe not – hiding medication in your cheek wasn't exactly difficult, and surely the bats would have been able to sleight-of-hand it away – but they were doing an excellent impersonation of being dead to the world.

She hadn't told anyone about her real plan. Even Troy only knew the superficial aspects of it. She wanted to keep the Bats in a mini-Arkham to convince them to do something about the real Arkham. And that was, indeed, the plan – mostly.

She paused by Batman's cell, gazing through the triple-layered bars locking him in. She could almost hear his voice from the first time they'd met so many months ago, crying, screaming, reliving his tragedies - his parents' deaths, the alienation of his foster son, the death of another foster son, heroes and civilians disappearing in a constant stream of death and misery all around him. He'd told her so much that it was hard _not_ to know who he was.

Bruce Wayne was under that mask. Bruce Wayne, millionaire philanthropist, who had dedicated surprisingly large amounts of his fortune to making life better for the rogues given that he spent most of his free time breaking their bones. The halfway house where newly sane ex-rogues were sent was run by the Wayne Foundation. Jobs for those very same ex-rogues were furnished by Wayne Enterprises.

But it didn't end with the ones that had reformed. Good old Brucie-boy was one of Arkham's top contributors. He even sat on the board of directors every once in a while, where in the past he'd made sure that they weren't being brutally mistreated. He'd been responsible for the abrupt departure of more than a few terrible people from the rosters of Arkham's staff. If Mr. Moneybags couldn't persuade the staff to fix Arkham's lacks, she was the queen of France.

She wandered onward. Batgirl, hair puffing oddly out from under her cowl, was curled tightly on her side, back to the wall. Once she knew that Bruce Wayne was Batman, figuring out Batgirl's identity was simple. Who hadn't seen Commissioner Gordon's daughter on the arm of Gotham's most eligible bachelor at parties and gala events? Newspapers loved to print pictures of Wayne Enterprise's scamp of a CEO and whatever beautiful woman was currently serving as his arm candy. Barbara Gordon was one of the few to make repeat appearances, and the only one with that particular shade of curly red shoulder-length hair. And Babs had connections, not only with her father but with a large number of the cops and lawyers that the man dealt with every day. Surely one of them would have the clout to get some changes made.

She turned and strolled back toward the tiny staff room that had once been a food preparation area for the apes. Barbara was asleep. Bruce, one ear of his cowl bent against the wall, lay silent and still on his cot. And Robin -

She stopped to peer in at the Boy Wonder, sprawled limply on his bed. He, at least, was a mystery. As far as she knew, Bruce had only ever had two foster sons, one of whom was dead, and one of whom moved to Bludhaven to fight crime as Nightwing. This boy didn't go to parties with Bruce or live in stately Wayne Manor.

Oh well. Whoever he was, maybe he'd be able to add some incentive for Arkham to change.

She wandered back to the staff room, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the light thrown off by a pair of lamps and a three-by-three grid of monitors. Grief, eating ice cream directly out of the container, watched the monitors closely for any sign of movement.

Sorrow flopped down in the only other chair in the little room, wincing as the springs squealed. "They're sleeping."

"I saw." He ran the spoon around the bottom of the container, scraping up the last of the ice cream, and stuffed it into his mouth. "You really think they'll try to change Arkham? I mean, are they actually going to realize that normal institutions don't do half the stupid things that Arkham does?"

Sorrow raised an eyebrow. "They don't?"

"Of course they don't!" he snapped, throwing the ice cream container across the room and onto the floor two feet away from the garbage can. He sighed, retrieved it, and threw it away. "You don't just leave people unattended in restraints for six hours, but it happens there. No qualified psychiatrist on this planet would put a mentally ill person in a little dark room in the basement and never let them out, but they're doing that right now. It shouldn't have taken an intervention from three inmates to save you from your psychiatrist. That's ludicrous. The bribes, the mistreatment, the orderlies that smack patients around and don't get punished, the whole place! It's ridiculous."

"And other places don't do that?"

"Exactly!" He dropped back into his seat, propping his feet up on the small area of cleared countertop in front of the monitors. "They're monsters."

"So then why'd you work there for so long?" And, more to the point, why was he willing to play Evil Arkham Doctor to the bats when he clearly hated Arkham's way of doing things so much?

"I didn't know what was going on." He sighed, sinking lower in his chair, not taking his eyes from the flickering screens. "I was just the archivist," he said softly. "I was up in the attic all the time. I never even set foot in the patient wings until…well. Until you."

He sat up a bit, squinting at one of the screens. "Well, she's clearly faking," he said, pointing to an overhead shot of Batgirl shifting under her covers. "With the amount of meds we gave her she shouldn't be able to move."

"We could switch to liquids, maybe? That's what the other rogues say they do in the real Arkham."

"Do you really want them to be knocked out?"

She considered it for a moment. "No, not really. They can't fix things until they escape, and they can't escape if they're drugged to the eyelids. I'd like to keep them here for at least a week, though," she added thoughtfully. "After all, this is just the easy part…"

"And then we're just going to let them go?" he asked flatly. "Won't they immediately come in here and put us in traction?"

She made a mental note to tell Sammy to stop mentioning traction or bat-induced hospital visits around Grief. "Nah. We won't let them go. We'll just allow them to escape. If we can time it right, we won't even be here when they get out. And if we can't, we can always get away before they get in here," she added, waving a hand toward the door to the outside.

"And you're sure they'll fix Arkham?"

Sorrow shrugged. "They have to."

(_to be continued_)


End file.
